2023 Annual Report
Deepening Roots, Strategizing for our Future
Dear Beloved Community,
Thank you for supporting API Chaya’s mission, services, and programs. Your financial gifts and volunteerism help us build a community where survivors have access to safety, pathways to healing, and support to thrive. 2023 marked both a re-grounding and an initiation of many exciting shifts for API Chaya. It was a year where we deeply reflected on our roots, and strategized alongside you what is needed for our communities moving forward. We first came to API Chaya more than 10 years ago, when our entire organizational budget was less than $700,000. And in 2023, we gave over $800,000 in direct assistance alone to immigrant survivors towards housing, food, healthcare, and other basic needs. We can only imagine what we will make possible another 10 years from now, when we honor our history and collectively vision towards our future free of violence.
It was API Chaya’s first year back in person since the beginning of the pandemic, and we again met people where they are, connecting directly with immigrant communities, sharing food, building leadership, and strengthening bonds. We also engaged in a long process of strategic planning, hearing directly from stakeholders, funders, our staff and board on ways to deepen and expand to more effectively achieve our mission. We will continue our work on the individual, interpersonal, community, and societal level to support those being made the most vulnerable, and to shift the conditions that allow harm to happen, and are excited to share our collectively built vision for new horizons in the coming years.
We are further excited to share about new structures we are exploring in the next two years towards the goals of deeper transformation after violence; investing deeper in preventing violence; as well as creating structures that are the most sustainable and healing for our communities and organization. We heard from you: you want API Chaya to share our models, be available in more places, and partner with more communities. We are planning long-term ways to do that, including increasing our public profile and sharing lessons learned, as well as the values and strategies that shape our organization. With this community-led direction, API Chaya moves closer to embodying the values we seek to nourish in our movements for justice - sustainability, well-being, strength in shared power, and the cultivation of joy at the individual and collective level.
The agency’s work would not be sustainable without your support and generosity. Thank you for being a long-standing partner during this remarkable period of challenges, hope, and experimentation. Your partnership allows us to support survivors in fleeing abusive landlords, intimate partners, and traffickers. It helps survivors have access to long-term case management with bilingual advocates, and allows us to strengthen the capacity of our community to support them. We also want to thank the API Chaya staff and board for your dedication to uplifting our cultural connections as we organize our communities, serve survivors, and serve as an integral part of the movement to end gender based violence, exploitation and all forms of oppression.
Together, we can achieve a safe, healing, and vibrant community,
Kalayo Pestaño & Priya Rai
Executive Co-Directors
API Chaya is by for survivors and for survivors.
We know that those closest to the problem are closest to the solution, which is why API Chaya is led by survivors.
Our governing board and staff are 100% people of color
Our Co-Directors, 50% of our Board, and more than half of our staff are queer and trans people of color who came to API Chaya as volunteers, participants, or clients
75% of our staff & board are also survivors, 60% are LGBTQ+, one-third are gender non-conforming, and more than 40% have a disability
2023 At A Glance
Served over 600 survivors and families, with over 5,200 hours of direct advocacy and support services
Hosted 250 community events, including support groups, healing gatherings, skillshares, and violence prevention events. We dove into new and exciting in-person programming with survivors and community members of all ages and backgrounds
Reached over 2,900 community members, and over 33,000 including our print and media resources
Strategic Planning
In 2022-2023, API Chaya engaged in a process of listening and reflection in considering our future strategic direction. Through our strategic planning process, we gained more clarity on who we are, who we serve, and our organization’s role in ending violence.
Theory of Change
Meeting survivors’ immediate needs and navigating complex systems
“As a transgender person I always felt welcomed here. I felt safe.”
-Participant of Spanish-speaking human trafficking survivors support group
Our work is grounded in recognizing survivors as complex, whole beings with the right to make decisions about their own lives. We often describe our approach as based on an empowerment model in which we recognize and support each survivor’s worth, integrity, right to self-determination and safety. Much of our work is to provide assistance in removing barriers to these ends. Our advocates work with survivors to provide holistic services including safety planning, culturally relevant therapy and support groups, skill development, employment search, healthcare, financial assistance, secure shelter, transitional housing, permanent housing, and legal services.
In 2023, we provided over 5,200 hours of direct service to more than 600 survivors and family members who are…
77% immigrant or refugee
44% limited English speakers
from 36 unique countries of origin
hold 45 unique ethnic identities
speak 26 unique primary language
19% with a disability
We helped survivors meet a constellation of basic and crucial needs with over $800,000 in direct financial assistance.
Family reunification is always one of our biggest highlights. In 2023, advocates accompanied 5 survivors to be reunited with their families after years of separation.
Strengthening community & breaking isolation
“I appreciated being in a space where I felt safe being vulnerable. I have not been this vulnerable in a long time. It was great to feel heard.” -Program Participant
Our programs share a vision for what a survivor’s future can be after crisis—a future where survivors are stable, independent, and healing can begin. We recognize that our communities have the resources, traditions and legacies we need to build the relationships and families we want for generations to come.
We are back in person! In 2023, we hosted multiple events to bring the community back together and bring API Chaya’s services and programs to more survivors.
Some highlights include:
Over 32 support group sessions for survivors of various backgrounds and identities
Our therapy program has grown 150% over the past 3 years
Hosted our first in-person vigil in three years with the theme, “Kawpa: Pieces of the Whole”
Hosted a Halo Halo Community Mixer as a summer gathering featuring cultural performances, food vendors, and family friendly games
Our 6th Annual GenFest, was a space for intergenerational play and wellness. We were joined by community guests that shared stories about family, culture, and expressing ourselves through art and creation
Our survivor gatherings continue to be vibrant, empowering, and culturally rich opportunities for our clients and their families to be in welcoming, survivor-centered spaces
Responding to and preventing violence
We know that when survivors face abuse, they first turn to their close networks. We train these networks to prevent and respond to violence through support, leadership and skill building programs that are language and culture specific.
This year’s Natural Helpers program launched a series of over 15 workshops, training community members to support survivors in their daily lives—in their homes, at their places of worship, in their schools, their workplaces, and neighborhoods. We launched a culturally specific Pasifika Natural Helpers training, and are planning more language- and culture-specific NH programs for the coming year.
The Peaceful Families Taskforce (PFT) responds to expressed needs by the greater Seattle Muslim community, providing grief sensitivity groups, Bonds of Kinship faith-based healthy families workshops, and A New Beginning divorce support groups.
Our youth organizers accompanied youth and community leaders in responding to instances of harm between young community members. This support was responsive to the specific cultural needs of youth, and understands that violence intervention is intertwined with violence prevention.
Our prevention work reflects our efforts to expand our work with whole families. We conducted an Intergenerational Summer Reading Program that encouraged families to practice being in intentional conversation together, learn more about one another, spend quality time together, and create a safer space where everyone (children, parents, grandparents) can share what’s on their mind and feel heard.
We understand the need for migrant workers to know their rights at work. This year, our human trafficking survivor leadership team and human trafficking survivor advocates hosted multiple know your rights trainings, including a training led in Spanish.
“As a transgender person I always felt welcomed here. I felt safe.”
-Participant of Spanish-speaking human trafficking survivors support group
Cultivating a sustainable organization & movement
API Chaya is led by survivors and for survivors. As an organization, we work to build leadership within our staff, board, and volunteers as we build power with survivors and marginalized communities. Survivor leadership is a centerpiece of our work. And because we are composed of the people that we also serve, creating a healing, resilient, sustainable organization and movement must be prioritized
Your support is what makes these critical services possible. Your generosity allows us to assist individuals to flee abusive landlords, intimate partners, and traffickers. It helps clients have access to long-term case management, bilingual advocates, interpreters, and legal assistance. At API Chaya, annually we increase our level of assistance to the most economically vulnerable families we serve. Thank you for being part of creating this safety net.
Financial Report
$800,000 in direct financial assistance to survivors and community members
100% of survivors & communities accessed our services for free
